Majority of downloaders paid zilch for Radiohead album

U.K. band Radiohead stirred up the music industry when it allowed consumers to set their own price for its new album In Rainbows.

A study from comScore finds that 62 percent of people who downloaded the album paid nothing.

During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the “In Rainbows” site, with a significant percentage of visitors ultimately downloading the album. The study showed that 38 percent of global downloaders of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62 percent choosing to pay nothing.

The high number of freeloaders does not surprise me. Give people a chance to take a free ride and they will. This is not to say that Radiohead does not benefit. I'll bet many of the downloaders had never listened to the band. Perhaps Radiohead converts some of them into paying concert-goers and T-shirt buyers.

A good chunk of those who paid for In Rainbows set what I consider to be a fair price.

Of those who were willing to pay, the largest percentage (17 percent) paid less than $4. However, a significant percentage (12 percent) were willing to pay between $8-$12, or approximately the cost to download a typical album via iTunes, and these consumers accounted for more than half (52 percent) of all sales in dollars.